Applying Skype in English as a foreign language instruction: Effect on students' speaking errors

Social networking services (SNS) have gained its popularity and utility in the past years, and there is an increasing interest in using SNS as an educational tool. Skype in particular provides teachers with a suitable platform to enhance students' language abilities and it is ideal for role-playing based learning activities. Role-playing has been proved to be an effective English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching tool. This pilot study was conducted on 42 students attending an English conversation course. Students' speaking errors during a role-playing Skype-based activity were being investigated with both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The findings of this pilot study indicated that Skype in combination with role-playing activities could gradually reduce the number of speaking errors and help improve speaking skills of EFL learners.